Reegs

14 billion years ago (give or take a few days) the universe was created from a singularity in a violent explosion of space, time and gravity. After just a minute it had grown to a million billion miles across and was expanding fast, consisting of about 75% hydrogen, 23% helium and a sprinkling of lithium and deuterium. The temperature was a little over 10 billion degrees, which is why the fleece was not invented until many years afterwards. In 3 minutes, 98% of the matter that there is or ever will be has been produced.

Fast forward a few billion years to an unassuming galaxy and to a small blue planet in orbit eight light-minutes from a star. A cocktail of water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen sulphide gases reacts with electrical energy to produce a steaming broth of amino acids, fatty acids, sugars and other miscellaneous organic compounds; this was probably not as tasty as it sounds. Emerging stumbling into the light from the background of this primordial sludge was an otherwise unremarkable ape eventually named Reegs.